


Unknotting

by A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massages, Slice of Life, soft and cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 10:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight/pseuds/A_Lily_In_The_Moonlight
Summary: Remus's muscles are sore after a full moon. Sirius decides to help.





	Unknotting

Everything hurt.

Remus didn’t dare look up from the book he was reading. Partly because he felt his neck might snap if he did – his head had been stuck at this angle far too long, and his muscles were still impossibly sore from last night transformation, just waiting to get tangled or knotted or whatever it was his muscles liked to do after full moons.

Okay, so right now mostly his neck hurt. The rest of his body didn’t feel as bad. He could manage.

He tried to focus on the words he was reading instead of the quiet whispering in the background. It was almost time for dinner; James and Peter were laying down on their tummies in the back of the room, heads over a large scroll of parchment. Runes homework: James was revising Peter’s essay and explaining a point he’d gotten wrong. Sirius was taking forever in the shower, which meant Remus probably wouldn’t have time to warm and stretch his contracted muscles under the blissful water before they headed down to the Great Hall.

He sighed and gave up the reading as a bad job. Right now his best option was to rub some kind of unguent onto his neck, and ask one of the guys to sum up the chapter for him; there was no way he could finish it tonight.

At home, Mom massaged his sore muscles before and after each full moon, thoroughly and lovingly. Here, James gave him heartfelt backrubs and he did the rest himself. It was uncomfortable at first, having someone else do something like that for him, but James was always very casual with physical touch – with all of them. He’d waved Remus’s embarrassment off: “I’m always knackered after Quidditch practice, you can pay me back then!” And Remus had agreed.

But James was busy right now, and as he carefully massaged the sides of his neck, he could feel the pain crawling down his spine, forming new knots by his shoulder blades. He let out a short groan, and only then realised Sirius had gotten out of the shower, leaving the door wide open for the foam to invade their room.

“You okay, Moons?” he asked, directing a strong Drying Charm at his damp hair and shuffling his hand through the locks to achieve maximum fluff.

“Yeah,” Remus lied, trying to reach the lower knots with his fingertips and only partly succeeding. “Same old.”

“Prongs!” Sirius barked. “It’s Moony’s massage time!”

“Shut up, Pads,” Remus whispered intensely, face getting warmer with embarrassment.

“Do it yourself, I’m busy,” James shot back.

Sirius glanced up from under his hair, hesitant, and Remus squashed the urge to roll his eyes right in the bud.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I’ll do it,” Sirius said suddenly.

“I’m _fine_.”

“No, you’re not.”

He abandoned his hair-drying task halfway through – a first – and plopped down next to Remus.

“Where does it hurt?”

Remus chewed on his bottom lip a little before giving in. He wasn’t able to reach the knots by himself and the pain would distract him too much during the day if he didn’t get that back rub. Plus, Sirius _owed_ him, didn’t he? Seeing as he’d taken too much time in the shower.

“Shoulder blades,” he mumbled. “Mostly.”

Sirius put his hands on the shoulder blades and started rubbing his palms over them awkwardly. Remus had to stifle a laugh.

“Em… not like that, Pads.”

“What,” Sirius said, offended.

Remus twisted around – _ouch_ – to take his hand.

“Like this. Use your fingers – that’s how you’ll find the knots. See, check my hand” – he held out his palm – “the softer parts you feel are the muscles, the smaller stringy ones too and they’re usually the sore ones. If you feel something like a ball, it’s a knot – there should be a lot on either side of my spine. You have to push and make like – circle motions? So you can feel the sides of the strings and the knot and not put all the pressure on just one point.”

Sirius had a peculiar look to him now, but he dismissed it and turned back around. A pair of hands slowly returned to his back, fingertips pushing tentatively against the sore muscles by his spine, and Remus let out a hiss. The pressure vanished instantly.

“Sorry! Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes,” Remus said. “Don’t worry. It’s a good hurt.”

There was a nervous cough behind him, but then Sirius’s fingers got to work again, a bit too soft to make a complete change, but massaging the worse of the tension away anyway. Remus sighed, his head dropping forward as the sharp pain faded into a simple dull sore.

“Better?” Sirius whispered, way closer to his ear than Remus had realised.

“Yes,” he said, eyes still closed. “Thanks Pads.”

Sirius hands lingered a while longer before slipping down the length of his back, and Remus suppressed a shiver as the warmth vanished. He instinctively leaned back into the body of the boy behind him, whose arms closed around his torso automatically.

“Feeling cuddly, Lupin?” Sirius joked, his breath warm against Remus ear.

“Shut up.”

He did feel cuddly, and apparently Sirius didn’t really mind because he kept him close as Remus dozed off.

James and Peter’s voices were still soft in the background, but he couldn’t bring himself to listen to what they were saying. Sirius’s ribcage expanded and contracted slowly against his back, and his damp hair was tickling his cheek.

There was something too big inside his chest, inflating with every breath. It hurt, a little.

It was a good hurt.

 


End file.
